Big Ten Football Power Rankings: Week 12

What ho, farm animal fornicators! I have returned from week 11 and come to the final conclusion that the Big Ten, on the (w)hole, is ass.

Not only did two of the conference’s three best teams not cover the spread, one of them lost outright to a Michigan State team that’s currently operating at a -15 point differential!

So that’s where we unhappily find ourselves, staring down the barrel of a playoff that’s going to find a way to include a 1-loss Tennessee over a 1-loss Michigan. It just means more!

What also means more is the fact Iowa was able to finally get the Brohm gorilla off its back and wipe the floor with a Purdue win in what is unquestionably the least consequential Iowa-Purdue contest of the past half decade. To wit:

2021: fresh off it’s win over Penn State and earning a #2 ranking, Iowa loses to Purdue 24-7, a win here would’ve iced the Big Ten West for Iowa well before it received a gift from Wisconsin in the waning seconds of the regular season.

2020: Iowa opens its shortened season with a 24-20 loss. Spencer Petras threw for 265 yards in his first start, a number he’s yet to surpass. That’s not good!

2019: beat Purdue after consecutive losses to Michigan and Penn State, sure whatever. Here’s the lede from the Associated Press from that game:

Gaslighting, what is it?

2018: Lost to Purdue 38-36 with a team that has 17 players on an NFL roster by my count.

This sandwiched a three-game losing streak for Iowa despite the Hawkeyes setting a scoring record of the Ferentz era. Don’t look that up.

A win over Purdue would’ve still gotten Iowa to 9 wins.

2017: A 24-15 loss that set the table for Purdue’s recent ownership. A win here again would’ve ascended Iowa to eight wins and kept it out of New York in December for a Pinstripe Bowl where Nate Stanley threw for 99 yards.

You notice now that 10 wins is out of reach. Nine wins is also out of reach. Therefore, Iowa’s performance last weekend was bupkis, and tomorrow’s thrashing of the Badgers is going to be equally meaningless because a win over Graham Mertz and an interim coach just doesn’t light my fire, sorry.

My wood ain’t wet, either.

1. Michigan (9-0, 6-0)

Sorry, Ohio State, maybe if you’d cover the spread once in a while you’d be ranked above a team that scored seven touchdowns, including a four-touchdown third quarter.

2. Ohio State (9-0, 6-0)

GIF

3. Illinois (7-2, 4-2)

Congrats to Bret Bielema, who finally got his first real indoctrination of the new-wave Big Ten by cratering a six-game win streak a-la losing to a team that had lost five of its last six and had four starters suspended for assaulting the other team off the football field.

More than anything, this stinks because now because the door is a wide OPEN for Iowa to win the Big Ten West.

Again.

4. Penn State (7-2, 4-2)

It was a crucial week for Pennsylvania, where local bullies unnecessarily beat the shit out of pretenders and danced on their grave.

Stay classy!

5. Iowa (5-4, 3-3)

This is a celebration on the shoulders of besting Purdue more than anything, and also sort of a pre-Wisconsin football spiking.

It’s also a PSA that the Big Ten still has 5-4 team in the division hunt with three games to go in the season.

6. Michigan State (4-5, 2-4)

Who’s ready for Mel Tucker hot seat season?!

7. Wisconsin (5-4, 3-3)

Heartland trophy?

More like Fartland trophy!

I laugh too hard at my own jokes.

8. Maryland (6-3, 3-3)

We can talk about coaching malpractice, or we can talk about Mike Locksley wasting Taulia Tagovailoa and three NFL wide receivers in a schedule that includes losses to Purdue and Wisconsin.

9. Purdue (5-4, 3-3)

A sneaky storyline of this season could be the Brohm brothers cementing themselves to mediocrity in a directional Lafayette in perpetuity, joining the rare names of Big Ten lifetime coachdom like Fitzgerald, Ferentz, Frost, Fleck… I’m seeing a pattern and after second thought, don’t B-lieve the Brohms are cut out for this league.

10. Minnesota (6-3, 3-3)

Uh-oh Minnesota, don’t win three games in a row and go to the Big Ten Championship on your own volition, that isn’t a recipe for disaster!

Also, needing to give the ball to Mohamed Ibrahim 32 times to beat Nebraska by 7 points is NOT where you want to be.

11. Northwestern (1-8, 1-5)

Don’t let Northwestern’s near-win over Ohio State distract you from the fact it has one (1) win, and yet somehow isn’t the worst team in the conference becaaaaaaaause…

12. Nebraska (3-6, 2-4)

Lost to Northwestern, and is therefore the worst team in the entire conference.

I didn’t forget anybody!